For 40 years, SWEP has been enabling sustainable solutions through our brazed plate heat exchangers. We ensure that our products are propelling the move towards greener technologies such as heat pumps and fuel cell solutions.
Offering sustainably sourced products
We pride ourselves in offering sustainably sourced products which are made from a high percentage of recycled materials. Our sustainability journey pushes us to challenge efficiency, not only in our products – but also in our own operations. Therefore, it is important that we look at how we can impact our environment and ensure that SWEP’s success and growth is sustainable as well.
Installing dry cooling systems and replacing obsolete cooling towers in plant facilities, fits the global goal for SWEP to improve water efficiency in our operations by 50% by 2030.
Water is one area where the world is facing a challenge and water stress is expected to increase over the next decades. At SWEP, we use the municipal water supply at our locations and we recognize the importance that our water withdrawals have on the communities where we operate. In order to share these resources responsibly with our community, SWEP has set a global goal to improve water efficiency in our operations by 50% (compared to 2021 levels) by 2030. This means that we want to halve our water withdrawals per kg product produced during this period.
A new cooling tower was installed in the SWEP Landskrona plant in late 2022, one more will follow early 2023. By replacing obsolete cooling towers, SWEP expects a 20% reduction in the total water withdrawal at the site.
In order to reach our goal, we know that investments are a necessity. As such, we are focusing on the areas in our production where we can make the biggest impact first. SWEP’s brazed plate heat exchangers require brazing in high temperature furnaces during the manufacturing process. To remove the products, the furnace and contents then needs to be cooled quickly and efficiently to safe temperatures. To achieve this, our sites use cooling towers to handle the temperature change. Cooling towers traditionally use large quantities of water and are one of the biggest contributors to our water withdrawals.
Installing dry cooling towers in plants
In Q4 2022 our Landskrona plant installed one new dry cooling tower while a second is planned for installment Q1 2023. By replacing the two old obsolete cooling towers, SWEP expects to see a 20% reduction in our total water withdrawal at the site, which is a significant step towards our 2030 goal. Additional benefits can be seen as the exclusion of water means we no longer have the risk of unwanted bacterial growth which eliminates the need for chemical treatment. Moreover, the dry-cooling system is 15% more energy efficient and has lower noise levels than the older water-cooling towers.
During the expansion of our facilities in Slovakia, a dry cooling system was also selected and was installed in Q4 2022. Due to the environmental benefits and water savings, we are looking into similar solutions at several other manufacturing sites. Environmental investments like this are putting us on the right track to achieve our 2030 water goals and contributing to shape a sustainable future for our people, environment, and community.
Read more on SWEPs sustainability efforts.